They work tirelessly all day under the harsh rays of a blazing sun, the stench of death and destruction around them. They are a team of Jewish heroes who are working around the clock with one mission: the recovery of human bodies.

The SA Friends of the Beit Halochem Zahal Disabled Veterans Organisation was established in Johannesburg in 1982, its primary goal being to help and support Zahal disabled veterans by raising funds to help them return and resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

There’s a popular weekly satirical show in Israel called Eretz Nehederet. In a recent episode, an actor playing Benny Gantz, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and newcomer to Israeli politics, is asked how he’s feeling.

Devotion to the cause of the State of Israel flourishes in the most unlikely places, even in societies where the Jewish presence is small to non-existent. Such is the case in Mozambique, where the work of Beth-El Associacao Crista Amigos De Israel - Mozambican Christian Friends of Israel - testifies to how much can be achieved by those inspired by their Christian faith to promote the Israeli cause, despite adverse conditions.

JNF’s unique “Blue Boy Box” now lives at King David Linksfield Pre-Primary so that children of each generation learn the importance of tzedakah (charity or welfare). It is the responsibility of Jews all over the world to build Israel, develop it and nurture it as the home of the Jewish nation

“Knowledge is Light” was our school motto when I was a child in Durban. The importance of education was made clear to us from as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t taken for granted. A good education was a privilege.

(JTA) Norwegian rapper not charged with hate speech
A Norwegian rapper who cursed Jews while performing at an event in Oslo promoting multiculturalism will not be charged with hate speech, because his words may have been criticism of Israel, prosecutors said.

Did Israeli soldiers violate international law by deliberately targeting unarmed children, journalists, health workers, and people with disabilities during the past year of violence along the Israel-Gaza border?

(JTA) After the New England Patriots beat the favoured Kansas City Chiefs to reach their third straight Super Bowl – their amazing ninth in less than 20 years – CBS sports analyst Boomer Esiason made an intriguing statement, namely that Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

We are winging our way towards Human Rights Day (21 March), the first public holiday of the year, which coincides with Purim. I can’t help but wonder about our concept of human rights and what it means, not least of all, to our government.

President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed in parliament last week that South Africa intended to downgrade its diplomatic presence in Israel. The foreign affairs bureaucracy was working “feverishly” on the matter. “The decision to downgrade the embassy in Israel is informed precisely by the violation of the rights of Palestinians and we are therefore putting pressure on Israel. But at the same time, we are saying we are willing to play a role and ensure there is peace,” said Ramaphosa.

Undeterred, and in spite of the hate-filled disparagement that spewed forth when Shashi Naidoo uttered positive comments about Israel and Jews last year, Haafizah Bhamjee penned a reasoned and sensible article on Israel and the Palestinians in the SA Jewish Report of 22 February.

With Prince William’s historic visit to Israel this week, all eyes have been trained on the Jewish capital. It may have taken 70 years, but the first official visit by a member of the British Royal family began in Israel on Monday, when William, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived in Tel Aviv.

Some 5 600 emissaries (shluchim) from Chabad-Lubavitch from all over the world gathered at the Pier 8 warehouse in Brooklyn, New York this week for the opening of their four-day annual international conference and banquet, 75 years after the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, from Europe.

One of the questions that haunts the story of Purim and moves silently through the lines of the Megillah is clear and chillingly simple: How could Jews have chosen to remain in Persian Shushan? It was so clearly an environment in which anti-Semitism was so prevalent that a genocide could be planned and almost implemented without comment by broader society.

“The greatness of our nation is that our people are great. We are a nation of heroes, of people with good and decent moral fibre who will not tolerate our country being plundered!” So said Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in Pretoria this morning.“This is a struggle for accountability and justice,” Goldstein told the crowd (which included prominent Jewish CEOs like Adrian Gore, Stephen Koseff and Michael Katz). “This struggle is about sovereignty. The power of the people always triumphs in the end.”

An American Jewish mother came up with the idea to build a Star Wars-inspired Lego shul - including the Legovitcher Rebbe and chassidim. She is trying to crowdfund her “Beis Death Star”, titling her episode “The Brickovicher Rebbe Returns”. In the illustration the Legovitcher Rebbe is seen leading his chassidim into battle...

THIS IS WHAT A JCC BOMB THREAT SOUNDS LIKE: Seventeen Jewish Community Centres in the United States received bomb threats. Centres such as these are comparable to Beyachad in Johannesburg and the Sampson Centre in Cape town and house multiple organisations and many staffers who had to be evacuated. This was the third wave of threats in January alone!

Prominent Jewish commentator on Israel, lawyer and academic, Alan Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat, said in Detroit last week that his “greatest hope is that four years from now I'll be proud to cast a vote for Donald Trump. As a patriotic American I want him to succeed.

Three Republican Party senators reintroduced legislation that recognises Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel and relocates the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They were joined by Congress and hope to obligate president to move the embassy to Jerusalem. But the State Department will not assist lawmakers in their efforts.

As always, not unlike other media houses, The SA Jewish Report Online published the stories most read during the year. Today, we publish the full list of the 35 stories that our readers read most during 2016. The year turned out more one of issues than of individual stories – with eleven of the Top-35 most read stories on the ongoing saga of father-and-son fugitive lawyers Ronald and Darren Bobroff. Every one of the Top-35 include links to the original stories...

The 80-year-old chaplain – who once traded a hostage-taker two pastrami sandwiches for his two guns - says that he had been accepting praise for the past 50 years “that doesn’t belong to me”. Most of it belonged to his wife, Miriam, he said. “She has been my confidant, my partner, my co-worker, she’s been my inspiration, she’s been my chaplain.”

No smiles now... Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Minister of Education and famed for always being pictured smiling, has called for the annexation of parts of the West Bank in response to the passing of a United Nations resolution taking Israel to task for continued building in the settlements.

The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays, “Worst fears, best hopes”.

WASHINGTON - Seventy per cent of Jewish voters favoured Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, with 25 per cent opting for Donald Trump, according to a poll commissioned by J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group. The survey again showed a community that trends more Democratic than the general population.

The citizens of the town of Cavaillon in Provence can’t lay claim to the oldest synagogue in France. It’s the second oldest. Actually, Cavaillon wasn’t even part of France when the original synagogue was built in the 15th century or when its replacement went up on the same site three centuries later. At that time, the town was located in a separate region called the Comtat Venaissin.

On November 2, the United Nations headquarters in New York was host to an expert round-table discussion, “Holocaust Remembrance and Public Memorials - the Complexities and Challenges of Facing the Past”.

Hillary Clinton’s plan to meet the Israeli prime minister in her first month as president is listed high in an internal campaign memo outlining the priorities of her first 100 days - a sign of how important it is to repair US-Israel tensions.

Maybe the times they are a-changing’? Bob Dylan became the first person considered primarily a musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday and the third Jew in 2016 so far. The Bard - as he is known by fans (highlighting how he is seen equally as a poet and musician) - became the fifteenth Jew to win the literature prize, joining the ranks of Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Patrick Modiano.